Bo frowned at him. “What in blazes are you talking about? We didn’t start any trouble.”
“That’s right,” Scratch said. “Hell, it was them other hombres who jumped us!”
Edgar kept the pitchfork in front of him and shook his head stubbornly. “That ain’t the way I seen it, and I’ll testify to that in any court of law I have to! You fellas came in here and got mad about the price I quoted you for takin’ care o’your horses. Then you started raisin’ a ruckus about it, and it was just pure luck my boy and some o’ his cousins were passin’ by and, uh, come to my assistance. Yeah, that’s it. They come to my assistance. I don’t know what happened to you after that, and it ain’t none of my business.”
The rehearsed sound of Edgar’s speech told Bo that Luke and Thad must have stopped here on their way to the Devery house and told him what to say in case the Texans showed up.
“You know damn well that ain’t the way it was,” Scratch said angrily.
“I’ll swear that I’m tellin’ the truth, and so will Luke and Thad and the rest of them boys,” Edgar insisted.
Bo put a hand on his partner’s arm. “Let it go, Scratch,” he said. “They’ve worked out their story, and we won’t be able to budge them on it. It’s their word against ours.”
“Maybe so, but it ain’t right,” Scratch said. “This varmint’s lyin’.”
“You best be careful,” Edgar warned. He jabbed at the air with the pitchfork for emphasis. “I’ll swear out a complaint agin you for talkin’ bad about me.”
“Where are our horses?” Bo asked.
“You left ’em here without payin’. I had a perfect right to sell ’em—”
“You sold our horses?” Scratch roared.
Edgar cringed. “The packhorse is still here. But my brother Jackson seen the bay and the dun and took a likin’ to ’em. I had a right to do it, I tell you. That ruckus you started caused some damage. I had a right—”
“Shut up,” Bo said. He wanted to do things legal and proper, but he was having a hard time keeping a rein on his temper. Besides, being a Texan, he came from a long heritage of doing things illegal and improper when it was necessary to right a wrong. “Where are the horses?”
Edgar swallowed hard. “Up in my brother’s barn.”
“Go up there, refund whatever he paid for them, and bring them back here.”
“I can’t do that. Jackson’d never go along with it!”
“Convince him,” Bo said. “Otherwise, we’re going to arrest you and hold you for trial on charges of horse stealing.”
“And you know what usually happens to horse thieves,” Scratch said with a savage grin. He made a motion like he was tugging on a hang rope around his neck.
Edgar moaned in dismay. “You don’t know what you’re askin’. Jackson won’t take kindly to—”
“We don’t care,” Bo cut in. “If you want to stick to that loco story of yours, go ahead and swear out a complaint against us for disturbing the peace. We’ll be glad to answer those charges the next time the circuit judge comes through. Until there’s a legal ruling, though, you had no right to sell our horses, so you’d better get them back. Understand?”
“I understand,” Edgar said grimly. “Do you boys understand what you’re gettin’ yourselves into? You’re just askin’ for trouble!” A sly gleam appeared in the man’s eyes. “How’s about this? I’ll get your horses back, and I’ll even stake you to some money for grub and other supplies. Then you can take off them blamed badges and forget all about bein’ deputies. Just ride on somewheres else and forget that you ever set foot in Mankiller, Colorado.”
Bo shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“We like it here,” Scratch added. “And we ain’t leavin’ any time soon.”
“Then God help you,” Edgar said, “because you’ll find out that when all hell breaks loose, nobody else around here will!”
As they started on up the street, leaving the livery stable behind them, Scratch said, “You believe that? That old son of a bitch lyin’ and sayin’ that all the trouble was our fault!”
“From what I’ve seen of them and heard about them, the Deverys are pretty cunning,” Bo said. “The last thing they want around here is any real law. That’s why they ran off or murdered the previous sheriffs and deputies, then finally put Biscuits O’Brien in the job. They knew he’d never try to stop them from doing anything they wanted to do, and yet if there were ever any questions from outside, they could point to him and claim that Mankiller has a lawman. If anything too bad happened, they could make it look like everything was his fault.”
“I’ll bet Biscuits don’t realize that.”
Bo grunted. “Biscuits doesn’t realize much of anything except that he’s thirsty. What he needs is to stop drinking, clean up a mite, and start acting like a real sheriff.”
Scratch stopped and looked over at his old friend. “And you wouldn’t be thinkin’ about tryin’ to wrestle him into doin’ that, now would you, Bo?”
“What could it hurt?”
“It could hurt because you always see the good in folks and think you can help make ’em better, and then you get to dependin’ on them. But then most of the time they’ll let you down when you really need ’em. Ol’Edgar was right about one thing—we can’t count on anybody but ourselves.”
Bo shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. But I don’t think it would hurt to have a talk with Biscuits.”
“If you want to waste your time, go right on ahead. But I ain’t gonna count on that drunk for anything.”
They resumed their walk up the street. After a moment, Scratch asked, “Did you know what you were talkin’ about when you said that about the circuit judge?”
“Not really, no. I was just making a guess. But nothing’s been said about Mankiller having any sort of judge or court. There must be a circuit judge who comes around. I’ll talk to Mrs. Bonner and find out for sure. If there’s not, we need to ask her to write to the governor and request that Mankiller be added to the circuit.”
“Why’s the governor gonna pay attention to a widow woman who runs a café?”
“Because by then, I expect she’s going to be the mayor,” Bo said with a smile.
Scratch shook his head. “That brain of yours is just brimmin’ over with ideas today, ain’t it?”
“Mankiller needs a real mayor and a real town council if we’re going to be able to get anything done around here.”
“That means havin’ an election,” Scratch pointed out.
“That’s right.”
“You think Pa Devery’s gonna stand for that?”
“He’ll have to unless he wants to draw more attention to the town, which wouldn’t be a good thing for him and his family. They’ve had things their own way for long enough. They need to realize that they’re going to have to give up some of their power.”
“That’s liable to bust things wide open.”
“Well,” Bo said with a smile, “that might not be such a bad thing.”
Scratch chuckled. “I can’t argue with that.”
“One more thing we need to do is see if we can get a small advance on our wages,” Bo went on. “If we’re being provided with room and board, we won’t need much money, but there might be times when a little cash would come in handy.”
“Yeah. You haven’t forgot that we came here to hunt for gold, have you? This whole business of takin’ the deputy jobs was just so’s we could build up a stake for prospectin’, ain’t it?”
“Oh, sure,” Bo agreed easily. “There’s no reason we can’t try to do a little good for the town while we’re at it, though.”
Scratch looked a little dubious, but he didn’t say anything else.
They were far enough up the street now that they could get their best look so far at the old Devery house. It was a sprawling, two-story structure built of unpainted boards that had faded and warped from time and weather. Several one-story additions had been built onto it, probably as mor
e family members arrived from Kansas. Bo wondered idly if all the Deverys in Mankiller lived there, or if some of them had houses of their own. It didn’t really matter, but he was curious.
The roof over the verandah sagged a little in places. The beams that held it up were crumbling. Weeds grew wild in front of the house, with a narrow path hacked through the briars. Clearly, the people who lived there didn’t believe in taking care of their home. Folks could get away with that for a while, but sooner or later it always caught up to them, Bo thought. It was a good indicator of just what sort of people the Deverys were, too.
There were two gables with windows on the second floor, above the verandah. Ratty curtains hung inside the windows. As Bo watched the curtains in the window on the left moved a little, as if someone in the room had twitched them aside. He caught a glimpse of a pale face peering out, and even though he couldn’t see the person’s eyes at this distance, the gaze seemed to hold a peculiar intensity. He was about to ask Scratch if he saw the same thing, when the curtains dropped back into place and the face was gone.
“Looks like the sort of house all the kids would stay away from when we was young’uns,” Scratch commented. “Like there were ghosts or monsters livin’ there.”
“If they were ghosts, they wouldn’t actually be living there, would they?” Bo asked.
Scratch chuckled. “I reckon not. Monsters, then. Is that all right?”
Bo thought about the Deverys and said, “Yeah. That’s a pretty good description.”
They crossed the street again and turned down-slope, heading back toward the sheriff’s office. They hadn’t gone even a block when they got a vivid reminder of the fact that the Deverys weren’t the only troublemakers around here. Mankiller was a boomtown, after all, and had all sorts of vice and iniquity competing for the attention of a couple of newly minted star packers.
In other words, a man came crashing through the batwings of a saloon, sailed across the boardwalk in front of it, and landed in the street. He had nearly knocked down a couple of miners who were walking past.
Raucous laughter followed the luckless hombre who obviously had not left the saloon of his own volition. He had been tossed out. Several men emerged onto the boardwalk. One of them stepped to the edge and silenced the laughter of the others by pulling his gun. He looped a thumb over the hammer and cocked the revolver, saying with brutal amusement, “We’ve seen you fly. Now we’re gonna see just how good you can jump, Peckham!”
CHAPTER 14
“Hold it!” Bo called, his voice ringing with command.
The man paused and turned a sneering, rawboned face toward the Texans. He was medium sized but powerfully muscled, wearing a leather vest over a faded blue shirt and gray wool pants tucked into high-topped boots with big spurs strapped to them. A flat-crowned black hat was thumbed back on his thatch of equally black hair.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked in flat, dangerous tones.
“Reckon that ought to be obvious,” Bo said. “We’re the law in Mankiller. Part of it, anyway.” He inclined his head toward Scratch. “He’s Deputy Morton. I’m Deputy Creel.”
“Well, I’m Finn Murdock, and I don’t give a damn. You old geezers run along now, and me and my friends won’t teach you a lesson for interferin’ with our fun.”
The three men who had followed Murdock out of the saloon had the same sort of lean, wolfish faces. They wore their guns low and looked like dangerous men. Bo had no doubt that they were.
But he wasn’t going to let that keep him from doing his job, and neither was Scratch. The silver-haired Texan drawled, “You fellas leave that hombre alone and run along now, and we won’t throw you in jail for disturbin’ the peace.”
Murdock and the other gunmen stared at Scratch as if they couldn’t believe what they had just heard. After a couple of seconds, Murdock said, “I’ve already got my gun in my hand, you old fool. I can kill you quicker’n you can blink, damn it!”
“You might be able to get lead in me,” Scratch allowed, “but you’ll be stone-cold dead before I hit the ground. I can guaran-damn-tee that.”
People in the street and on the boardwalks began to scatter, sensing that bullets were going to be flying any second now. Bo and Scratch hadn’t really wanted such a dramatic confrontation so soon, but on the other hand, it would help the word get around town that Mankiller had itself a couple of real lawmen now.
Assuming, of course, that the Texans lived through the next few minutes.
The man who had been thrown out of the saloon to start this scrambled to his feet. “Stop it!” he said in a choked voice. “Nobody has to die over this. You and your friends can have my claim, Murdock. I’ll find another one.”
Bo said, “So you’re claim jumpers. Can’t say as I’m really surprised. What is it, you let Peckham here do all the work, and then you take it over and cash in on it?”
“None of your business, that’s what it is,” Murdock snapped. “And you shut your damn mouth, Peckham.”
One of the other men spoke up. “Finn, are we gonna let these old mossbacks talk to us like that, or are we gonna do something about it?”
“We’re gonna do something about it,” Murdock said between gritted teeth. “Right now!”
The barrel of the gun in his hand was still pointed up, as it had been when he cocked it. Now, as the sharp words came out of his mouth, it snapped down and gouted flame.
Bo and Scratch were already moving, though. Bo went left, Scratch went right, and as they darted aside, their Colts leaped into their hands. Scratch took Murdock first, triggering at the sneering gunman as he felt the tug of a bullet plucking at the shoulder of his shirt. The slug came close enough so that he felt the heat of its passage, but it didn’t actually touch his flesh.
Murdock couldn’t make the same claim. The .44 caliber round from Scratch’s gun punched into his midsection and doubled him over. Murdock’s gun went off again as his finger jerked the trigger, but it was pointing down now and the bullet tore into the boardwalk at his feet, throwing splinters in the air.
At the same time, Bo lined his Colt on the closest of the other three men and fired as they clawed at their guns. His first shot drove into the target’s chest and knocked the man back through the batwings, which swung back and forth wildly from the impact.
A slug kicked up splinters at Bo’s feet as he shifted his aim. With the cool, steady nerves of long experience, he aimed and fired, sending another man spinning off his feet. Speed mattered in a gunfight, but so did accuracy and steadiness.
A second shot blasted out from Scratch’s gun. The steel-jacketed round ripped through the fourth man’s body, puncturing his left lung. He crumpled, bloody froth bubbling from his mouth as he sprawled just in front of the saloon’s entrance.
All four of the gunmen were down, but at least some of them were still alive and therefore still dangerous. The Texans moved quickly, striding forward to kick guns out of the reach of clawing fingers.
Finn Murdock stared up at Scratch from pain-wracked eyes and gasped out, “How…how did you…”
“Think about it, mister,” Scratch said. “For fellas to get as old as we are, they have to be damn good or damn lucky…or both.”
Understanding dawned in Murdock’s eyes, but that was the last emotion to register there. They widened into a glassy stare as death claimed him.
The man who had fallen back through the batwings was dead, too, shot through the heart. The other two were unconscious and clearly not long for this world. Bo asked one of the bystanders to fetch the doctor anyway, then he and Scratch thumbed fresh cartridges into their guns to replace the rounds they had fired.
The miner, Peckham, stared at them from the street, where he had stood transfixed during the whole shoot-out. He seemed to have trouble finding his voice, but finally he was able to say, “You…you killed all of them. Four against two…and you’re not even wounded, either of you!”
“Murdock came close,” Scratch said, fingering the tear i
n his shirt where the gunman’s bullet had nearly tagged him. “This ain’t horseshoes, though. Close don’t count.”
Peckham stumbled over to the boardwalk. He was a stocky, middle-aged man with a broad, friendly face and curly brown hair. He shook his head in amazement as he looked at the bodies.
“Never saw anything like it in my life.”
That sentiment was echoed by numerous bystanders in the crowd that formed around the front of the saloon now that the shooting was over. Everybody wanted to take a gander at the bloody corpses.
A man pushed his way through the press of people. Bo recognized him as Sam Bradfield, the undertaker. Bradfield looked at him and Scratch and exclaimed, “Good Lord! When you said there’d be more business for me, I didn’t figure you meant this soon!”
“Wasn’t our choice,” Bo said.
“Those hombres called the tune,” Scratch added. “We just danced to it.”
Peckham said, “They were trying to force me to sign over my claim to them.”
“Is it a good one?” Bo asked.
A rueful laugh came from the stocky miner. “That’s just it. I’ve found some color, but not all that much. By the time I give the Deverys their share, I’m just barely making enough to keep going. I found a good-sized nugget yesterday, though, and brought it into town today. I guess Murdock saw it and thought my claim was a lot richer than it really is. That’s why I would have let them have it, especially if they hadn’t started roughing me up.”
Bradfield said, “I’ve seen this bunch hanging around town for several days. I had a feeling they were up to no good. They were just waiting for a chance to swoop in on somebody, like vultures. You were unlucky enough to be the one they picked, Tobias.”
Peckham nodded. “I reckon so. Thing is, that claim’s not really worth dying over.”
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